sales, the staff at PMQ is splitting the difference between the reports of CHD Expert and Technomic,
thus arriving at our prediction that, when all the
numbers come in, total pizza industry sales in 2013
will have grown by 1.16% compared to 2012.

So what’s our final total? By our estimates, total
sales for the period ending September 2013 amount
to $37,375,108,000. We derived this sum by taking
last year’s total sales of $36,786,524,044 (
according to CHD Expert) and factoring in our estimated
growth figure of 1.16% over the past year.

Store Counts and Averages

We have used CHD Expert’s data relating to total
store counts. The total number of stores, according
to these figures, is 71,387. About 53% of all pizza
stores are independents, while 47% are chains. (For
the record, we are defining independents as pizzerias
with fewer than 10 units; any company with more
than 10 stores is referred to as a chain.)

According to our calculations, based on CHD’s
total number of pizza stores and our estimated total
sales figure for 2013, the average per-unit sales for
all U.S. pizzerias (chains and independents combined) equaled $523,556, compared to $511,948
in the previous year.

According to CHD, the chains’ total sales
amounted to $22,301,349,410 in 2013. The chains’
average per-unit sales equaled $668,125 in 2013, an
increase from $653,859 in 2012.

According to PMQ’s estimates, independent pizzerias’ total sales amounted to $15,073,758,590,
compared to $14,557,100,260 in the previous
year. The average annual sales for independents
amounted to $396,594, compared to $380,111 in
the previous year.

Finally, the total sales for the Top 50 pizzeria
chains in 2012 was $19,753,075,000, with per-unit
sales averaging $721,995 (among 27,359 units),
according to Technomic. In 2011, the Top 50 sales
equaled $18,472,166,000, with total per-unit sales
averaging $653,859 (among 28,251 units). That
means the Top 50 experienced a total sales increase
of nearly $1,280,909,000, while store counts fell
by 892 in 2012.

The Cold War

The economy appears to have hit a “sweet spot” as
far as the pizza restaurant business is concerned.
While the recovery has been slow, it’s been strong
enough to make pizza more attractive as an affordable dining-out option, while the frozen pizza segment, according to Mintel, has declined by 1.1%.
Mintel projects that frozen pizza sales will continue
to drop through 2018 “as consumers rediscover